


A Cold Night Alone Under an Unforgiving Sky

by RideBoldlyRide



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, It's painful man, We love each other so much that we hate each other, it's the only excuse for all this agonizing angst we're giving each other, zutara angst drabble challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26416984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RideBoldlyRide/pseuds/RideBoldlyRide
Summary: For the Zutara Angst Challenge.The sky is wheeling overhead, she's cold and warm and alone, but not.Under the moonless sky, Katara is reminded of what home is.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43
Collections: Zutara Angst Challenge





	A Cold Night Alone Under an Unforgiving Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Smoky things appear by day, and fiery things by night - An old English Proverb

There had been a chance this would happen, but she had gone anyway.

The stars were bright and wheeling through the sky. Below her, the earth was cold and unforgiving, and the night’s chill was seeping into her bones. She didn’t move. 

Blue eyes cold, they searched the heavens. There were no celestial signs, no portents, no heavenly visitors. Her moonless sky seemed to stretch endlessly before her. 

They would be waiting. 

He would be mad. He had every right to be. 

“You promised!” He would say as the door closed behind him.

“This was the last time.” She would shudder. 

An aggravated sigh. Warm arms around a cold waist. His chest pressed to her back.

“That’s what you said last time.” His lips mumbling into her shoulder.

“This time I mean it.” She would turn, eyes glinting.

“Why?”

“Because I can’t leave you two.”

Eyes like the heart of fire pierced her. “But you did.”

His hands fall away, the warmth at her back is fading.

The now and then is slipping together again. Purple bruises the navy sky, and the mirage of the then slips into the mists of the now.

A warmth that feels so different than his suffuses her belly, even as the ice at her fingers starts to numb. 

_Her_ voice echoes around the still woman, but she can’t turn to it. She blinks under the sky, and when she reopens her eyes, she meets a gaze of blue so very much like her brother’s. Contrasted with her light skin, they glow in the sunlight.

Sunlight. 

Yes, the sky is ablaze at midday, before her. The little girl has a brilliant smile, so bright, so glittering, it pales Agni to shame. In her hands, a penguin-otter pup. 

Ah, yes. They were in the South Pole. No wonder her back was so cold. She was lying in the snow. 

She really ought to get up, but for the moment, she found it so very challenging to find the motivation.

“Mom!” Her little one is holding the pup out for her to see. “How did you ever leave this place?! It’s so _big…_ ” 

Those blue eyes are scanning the glaciers and the tundras eagerly before her, but her mother gazed only at her.

“And they have penguin-otters here!” 

A chuckle is on her lips. 

“Yes, my dear, they do.”

Something pulls the girl’s attention, and she bolts away. Her mother lies still, the sounds of her home wash over her like the current. Her husband crunches up to her. 

A contented smile pulls across his face, his cheeks flushed by the harsh wind.

“We should come more often.”

“I miss home.” Her words are soft, and he leans down to hear them. 

“I’m sorry.” He misunderstands, she knows.

“No, our home, Zuko.”

“Oh.” He leans forward, lifting her off the snow. “Then let’s go home.” 

She turns her face into his shoulder, and with a sigh, closes her eyes, and embraces the dark.


End file.
